History of the War Relocation Authority (WRA) Sites

By Lynne Horiuchi – Project Director

The Imprisonment Process

Shortly after the issuance of E.O. 9066, Japanese immigrants and American citizens of Japanese ancestry found themselves incarcerated in “Assembly” Centers and War Relocation Authority centers.¹ Numerous administrative orders from the U.S. military and numerous Federal agencies quickly organized the removal of entire Japanese American communities from the west coast of the United States. E.O. 9066 provided the legal tool for the military to carry out a mass incarceration for the protection of national security. The Secretary of War and their military commanders created “military areas” from which they could exclude “any persons” and subject them to whatever restrictions the federal government felt appropriate. The U.S. government then created two sets of concentration camps to hold the excluded persons –seventeen Assembly Centers and ten WRA Centers. The Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, then issued Civil Exclusion Orders to remove and incarcerate “all persons of Japanese ancestry” from within the declared military areas. Issued on March 18, 1942, E.O. 9102 created the WRA to manage the “evacuation” project once the military had removed the population considered a security risk from the designated military areas.

The War Relocation Authority Centers

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Army’s civil administration, the Wartime Civil Control Administration, with the assistance of numerous other government agencies, carried out the bulk of planning and construction for the confinement sites. The U.S. Army’s Final Report claimed the Assembly Centers were completed within twenty-eight days in both rural and urban areas—between February 19, 1942 and March 20, 1942.  With compressed schedules, the “Assembly” Centers were actually in a continual state of construction and barely completed by the time the “evacuees” were transported to WRA Centers between March and November 1942.

List of Temporary “Assembly Centers”

While the standardized designs were monotonous, topography, policy, land ownership, the building initiatives of the incarcerated Japanese American communities, and other factors created differences in the War Relocation Authority (WRA) Center designs. For example, as an exception to single site camps, multiple cities with populations of 5,000-10,000 each were created on Native American reservations under the jurisdiction of the Office of Indian Affairs, Secretary of Interior within the Gila River and Colorado Relocation Centers through a Memorandum of Understanding with the WRA. The Butte and Canal camps—were located on the Gila River WRA Center on the Gila River Indian Reservation, and three camps —Poston I, II, and III, also known by the residents as Roastin’, Toastin’, and Dustin’ were located on the Colorado River Indian Reservation.

Each WRA Center constituted a new small city requiring significant investments in infrastructure to provide basic functions for living. The typical residential blocks housed approximately 300 people in fourteen barracks with a shared mess hall, a recreation hall, two communal bathhouses for men and women, a laundry room, an ironing room, and a heating oil storage tank.

Although WRA Centers generally followed standardized designs, topography, policy, and land ownership, the building initiatives of the incarcerated Japanese American communities, and other factors created differences in the WRA Center designs. For example, as an exception to single site camps, multiple cities with populations of 5,000-10,000 each were created on Native American reservations under the jurisdiction of the Office of Indian Affairs through a Memorandum of Understanding with the WRA. The Butte and Canal camps were located on the Gila River Relocation Center on the Gila River Indian Reservation. Three camps – Poston I, II, and III – also known by the residents as Roastin’, Toastin’, and Dustin’, were located on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation.

The United States government produced the majority of the architectural/engineering drawings, plans, and maps in this website collection. This collection must then be interpreted within the context of a government’s power over a group of people incarcerated on the basis of their ancestry.

The material components of these sites were almost all dismantled, destroyed, or salvaged, leaving behind barren landscapes with few structures. Thus, the mapping and plans included here are important for imagining the look and material feel of Japanese American confinement sites. Though ephemeral, the WRA represented lively, viable cities that existed within the limitations of incarceration and the negotiation of the “citizens” with their jailers. The WRA Center sites are developing today as educational and destination sites, transforming the memory of those cities once again.

Construction Matrix for Relocation Centers

¹ A Note on the Naming of the Camps
The World War II mass incarceration of 117,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans was legalized through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Presidential Executive Order 9066 (E.O. 9066) on February 19, 1942. The U.S. military was delegated broad authority over civil control and counterespionage that included mass incarceration. The Western Defense Command and Fourth Army located at the Presidio of San Francisco then enacted military Civilian Exclusion Orders specifically directed at the removal and incarceration of people “of Japanese ancestry.” The euphemistic names employed by the U.S. government to identify the sites to which they were sent, such as “Assembly” Centers and War Relocation Authority (WRA) “relocation centers”, are now considered subgroups under the term “Japanese American Confinement Sites.” However, many scholars prefer the more descriptive and historically correct term, “concentration camps,” for the prison camps authorized under E.0. 9066 by which Japanese Americans were imprisoned. The term ‘internment’ is more correctly used for the incarceration of enemy aliens—citizens of foreign enemy nations.  The Justice Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Army built numerous internment sites for the incarceration of enemy aliens, including Germans and Italians residing in the U.S. who were considered threats to our national security.

Because this website focuses on archival documentation, we have often used the names employed in government archival systems, such as WRA Centers for the semi-permanent sites, to aid researchers in finding the original documents.

Sources
Horiuchi, Lynne. Dislocations and Relocations: The Built Environments of Japanese American Internment. University of California, 2005.

Justice Department Camps and U.S. Army Facilities

By Max Nihei – Exhibitions and Collections Manager, NJAHS

During WWII, over 7,000 Japanese immigrants, Japanese Americans, and Japanese from Latin America were held in 8 camps run by the Department of Justice and at least 14 U.S. Army facilities.

Just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 4,000 Japanese immigrants were detained by the FBI and sent to Department of Justice camps, run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and guarded by the Border Patrol. Over half of the Japanese population in America were first generation long-term US residents who were denied citizenship and declared enemy aliens. Most would be subjected to hearings and then transferred to the major WRA Centers or to other facilities.

Those of Japanese descent imprisoned in the Department of Justice camps and U.S. Army Facilities included Japanese nationals who would be returned to Japan after WWII, pro-Japan dissidents deemed troublesome by administration in the WRA Centers, those who renounced their American citizenship, and others who came under suspicion of having ties to the Japanese government, such as religious leaders and members of Japanese organizations or groups. The Department of Justice camps also held 11,507 German and 1,881 Italian nationals who were stranded in the U.S., unnaturalized immigrants, and a small number of U.S. citizens of German and Italian descent, until as late as 1947. Thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian Latin Americans were transferred from Peru, Panama, Bolivia, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to Department of Justice camps. Most of the Department of Justice camps held men exclusively, with the exception of Seagoville, Texas, which held single women and families, and Crystal City, Texas, which held families.

The U.S. Army Facilities were preexisting army bases, with the exception of Camp Lordsburg in New Mexico which was created for the primary purpose of Japanese American confinement, and Stringtown, Oklahoma, which was originally a jail. Generally, first generation Japanese residents detained early into U.S. involvement in WWII would be held, processed, and transferred from these locations to other facilities. The U.S. Army Facilities were then converted to Japanese, German or Italian POW camps for the remainder of the war.

Note: U.S. Army and Department of Justice internment camps were considered temporary. Thus, complete listings of camps and incarcerees are unavailable.

List of Department of Justice Internment Camps (DOJ) and U.S. Army Facilities (USAF)

Sources
Burton, Jeffrey F., et al. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. Western Archaeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1999. Book.

Krammer, Arnold. Undue Process: The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, INC., 1997. Book.

Japanese Americans in the United States Army during WWII

By Max Nihei – Exhibitions and Collections Manager, NJAHS

The Military Intelligence Service

Click to enlarge

On November 1, 1941, the U.S. Army started its first foreign language school in the Presidio of San Francisco to covertly train second generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) military Japanese terminology (heigo) in order to perform counterintelligence operations in the Pacific Theater of World War II amidst rising tensions between Japan and the United States. The groundwork to start the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) began as early as March 1941. Training was to last a year, but the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 accelerated the curriculum. Just 6 months later, the U.S. Army graduated 40 Nisei and 2 Caucasian officers on May 1, 1942. With the signing of Executive Order 9066, the school moved out of the Exclusion Zone along the West Coast to Camp Savage, Minnesota. At the same time, Japanese American civilians were forcefully moved to the WRA Centers. As demand for the Nisei linguists increased, the school moved to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and again to the Presidio of Monterey near the end of the war. The Defense Language Institute is the present day incarnation of the MISLS and is still located in Monterey.

There were over 6,000 Nisei Linguists during WWII. They were assigned to every Allied command in the Pacific Theater, oftentimes at or close to the frontlines of the battlefield, translating recovered Japanese documents, intercepting radio transmissions, and interrogating Japanese prisoners of war in order to learn the Imperial Japanese Army’s (IJA) order of battle and locations, supply caches and runs, battle plans, and other important strategic information. They translated, created, and distributed documents to encourage the Japanese to surrender, and on Okinawa and Saipan, where the IJA and civilians entrenched themselves in caves, the Nisei linguists entered the caves to persuade the Japanese to surrender peacefully. The Nisei linguists were in danger of being killed by Japanese and U.S. soldiers alike, and were to be assigned Caucasian bodyguards at all times

Immediately after the war had ended with the U.S. Army using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the MIS were assigned to the Occupation of Japan, where they were crucial in maintaining relations between the United States and Japan. They served as interpreters, translators, and investigators, aiding in war crimes trials and the surrender of Japanese forces, as personal aides to high ranking U.S. Army officials, participated in the liberation of Allied prisoners of war, and the return of Japanese prisoners of war. They attended to administrative matters such as writing the new Japanese Constitution, implementing the Police Reserve Force, and maintained order with the Civil Censorship Detachment and the Counter Intelligence Corps.

The 100^th Infantry Battalion

In 1940, the United States reinstituted the draft and over 1,400 Japanese Americans were assigned to the 298^th and 299^th Regiments of the Hawaii National Guard. On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese American members of the 298^th and 299^th were sent to Schofield Barracks while the U.S. government could figure out what to do with them. On January 5, 1941, the War Department classified Japanese Americans as enemy aliens ineligible for the draft. Executive Order 9066 and Japanese American incarceration soon followed. In May 1942, when the Japanese naval armada moved towards Midway, the U.S. Army determined that the JA’s of the 298^th and 299^th could be a potential security threat if the IJA indeed reached Hawaii. In secret, all 1,400 soldiers were covertly shipped to the mainland United States for basic training. They were to become the racially segregated 100^th Infantry Battalion. On August 21, 1943, they were sent to North Africa, where they would be assigned to German prisoner of war guard duty. In response, the 100^th’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Farrant Turner demanded they be sent to Italy, where they could see active combat. On September 22, 1943, the battalion joined the U.S. Army 34^th Division in Salerno, Italy, and for 9 months they fought German forces in Salerno, Rome, and Monte Cassino. There, they suffered massive casualties, reducing their numbers from 1,300 to 600, earning them the nickname, “Purple Heart Battalion.” On May 1, 1944, the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team landed in Italy. The 100^th Infantry Battalion was designated the first Battalion of the 442^nd and was thus allowed to retain its name.

The Loyalty Questionnaire

On January 22, 1943, the War Department, based on the success of the 100^th Infantry Battalion and Varsity Victory Volunteers, ordered the creation of a Regimental Combat Team comprised of Japanese American citizens who had been born in the United States. In order to ascertain the loyalty of Japanese American incarcerees and their willingness to serve in the U.S. Army, the War Department and War Relocation Authority issued the “loyalty questionnaire,” titled “Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry,” Selective Form 304A. This form, written by the Office of Naval Intelligence, was a source of great controversy in the Japanese American community. It essentially asked a series of questions to determine one’s ties to Japan. Of particular consternation were questions 27 and 28. Question 27 asked if one would serve in combat duty for the United States or serve the country in other ways, and Question 28 asked if they would declare loyalty to the United States and renounce allegiance to Japan. The questionnaire asked first generation Japanese Americans, who had been barred from U.S. citizenship because of race to renounce their only citizenship, and asked second generation Japanese Americans – U.S. citizens – to renounce loyalty to the Emperor of Japan. It also raised questions in the community about the draft with no mention of restoring rights in exchange for military service. As a result, almost 20,000 applicants asked for repatriation and expatriation, and the initial volunteer quota for the 442^nd RCT was only 6% of men eligible for military service. Nearly a quarter answered with a no to both questions, a qualified answer in protest, or a combination of yes / no and a qualified answer in protest. Some who answered this way were imprisoned for evading the draft.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team

Click to enlarge

The 442^nd Regimental Combat Team was initially comprised of 2,686 Japanese American volunteers from Hawai’i and 1,500 from the U.S. mainland’s WRA Camps. Overall, approximately 14,000 men served in the 442^nd RCT as a result of the draft. The 442^nd RCT was made up of the 100^th, 2^nd, and 3^rd Infantry Battalions, the 522^nd Field Artillery Battalion, the 232^nd Combat Engineers Company, an Anti-Tank Company, Cannon Company, Medical Detachment, and the 206^th Army Ground Forces Band. On May 1, 1944, the 442^nd RCT was sent to Italy, and in June 1944, the 100^th Battalion was incorporated into the 442^nd RCT. They were assigned to General Mark Clark’s 5^th Army, where they engaged the German Army and drove them into the mountains of northern Italy. On August 15, 1944, the Anti-Tank Company was detached and sent to the invasion of southern France via assault glider landing. In winter 1944, they fought the Germans in the Vosges Mountains, France. The 442^nd RCT liberated the French towns of Brueyers, Belmont, and Biffontaine. The 442^nd RCT was next ordered to locate the 1^st Battalion, 141 Regiment of the 36^th “Texas” Division, the “Lost Battalion.” Over 200 Caucasian men were rescued from German forces by the 442^nd RCT at the cost of 800 Japanese American men.

From March 23, 1945 – April 25, 1945, the 442^nd RCT participated in the breakthrough of the Gothic Line to defeat German forces in Italy. The 442^nd RCT worked with the segregated African American 92^nd Infantry Division to mount a surprise diversionary attack that became and all-out offensive, forcing the Germans to retreat. Thousands of Germans surrendered as their retreat was cut off. By May 2, 1945, the war in Italy ended and 6 days later, Germany surrendered.

While the 100^th Battallion and 442^nd RCT were shipped to Italy, the 522^nd Field Artillery Battalion became a roving battalion supporting army units in Germany. They were the some of the first Allied troops to release prisoners from Kaufering IV Hurlach slave labor camp, one of 169 satellite camps of Dachau concentration camp. They discovered other subcamps and rescued prisoners on a death march at Waakirchen. From May to November 1945, the 522^nd set up roadblocks and sentry posts to arrest fleeing Nazis.

The 442^nd RCT is the most decorated unit in the history of the United States. The 442^nd RCT’s service and the loyalty of Hawai’i during WWII helped convince Congress to recognize Hawai’i as the 50^th state in August 1959. After the war, many veterans took advantage of the GI Bill to pursue careers that may not have been open to them before. Daniel K. Inouye and Spark Matsunaga pursued political careers after their service in the 442^nd. On October 5, 2010, the 442^nd RCT, 100^th Infantry Battalion, and the Nisei in the MIS were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Sources:

McNaughton, James. Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service during World War II. Department of the Army, 2006.
Swift Jr., David W. First Class: Origins of the Military Intelligence Service Language Program. Second Edition. National Japanese American Historical Society, 2008.
Densho – Military Intelligence Service
Wikipedia, Occupation of Japan
Densho – 100^th Infantry Battalion
Wikipeda – 100^th Infantry Battalion
Densho – Loyalty Questionnaire
Densho – 442^nd Regimental Combat Team
Wikipedia – 442^nd Infantry Regiment